Page 391 - war-and-peace

The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his
eyes on him, frowning.
‘What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?’
he said in his shrill, harsh voice. ‘The road is not swept for
the princess my daughter, but for a minister! For me, there
are no ministers!’
‘Your honor, I thought..’
‘You thought!’ shouted the prince, his words coming
more and more rapidly and indistinctly. ‘You thought!...
Rascals! Blackgaurds!... I’ll teach you to think!’ and lift-
ing his stick he swung it and would have hit Alpatych, the
overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the blow.
‘Thought... Blackguards...’ shouted the prince rapidly.
But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity
in avoiding the stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his
bald head resignedly before him, or perhaps for that very
reason, the prince, though he continued to shout: ‘Black-
gaurds!... Throw the snow back on the road!’ did not lift his
stick again but hurried into the house.
Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bouri-
enne, who knew that the prince was in a bad humor, stood
awaiting him; Mademoiselle Bourienne with a radiant face
that said: ‘I know nothing, I am the same as usual,’ and Prin-
cess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes. What
she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occa-
sions she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but
could not. She thought: ‘If I seem not to notice he will think
that I do not sympathize with him; if I seem sad and out of
spirits myself, he will say (as he has done before) that I’m in

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